A Bangladeshi fact-checking platform said on Friday that it identified India-based 49 media outlets that spread fake news reports relating to 13 issues on Bangladesh between August 12 and December 5.
Among them, Republic Bangla led the list, broadcasting fake news reports centring five issues alone. Hindustan Times, Zee News, and Live Mint followed closely, each spreading fake news reports relating to three issues. Additionally, Republic, India Today, ABP Anand, and Aaj Tak each broadcast fake news reports on two issues.
Rumor Scanner, an independent fact checking platform, found that the remaining 41 media outlets each broadcast fake news reports on one issue.
Some of the media outlets published the same fake news over days, the fact-checking platform said.
The Indian media started spreading fake news targeting Bangladesh after the fall of Sheikh Hasina on August 5 through a student-led mass uprising.
The Indian media claimed that Sheikh Hasina issued an open letter from Delhi, blaming the United States for her fall. It was later revealed that the ousted prime minister had not issued any such letter. A Rumor Scanner investigation found that the letter had first spread on Facebook and later Agartala-based daily Tripura Bhobishyot in its print edition published the letter with a date on it. Following this, screenshots of the letter were widely shared on social media and also broadcast by several media outlets in both India and Bangladesh.
After August 5, a video clip spread across various Indian media outlets, claiming that a Hindu man organised a human chain demanding recovery of his missing son. The real fact on the clip revealed that the man was actually a Muslim named Babul Howlader. The human chain was organised in an effort to trace his son who went missing in 2013.
In another fake report, the Indian media outlets claimed that chief adviser to the interim government Professor Muhammad Yunus was admitted to the intensive care unit in critical condition. A photo of a patient receiving treatment in a hospital was also published alongside the claim. Investigations revealed that it was not Yunus鈥� photo. In fact, it was neither recent nor from Bangladesh. Yunus is, in fact, in good health.
Following Donald Trump鈥檚 victory in the United States presidential election on November 5, in another false claim, fake news spread across the Indian media that Muhammad Yunus had fled to France. The photo used as evidence of his escape was actually taken on August 8, when Yunus was returning from France to Bangladesh.
On November 13, for the first time since independence, a container-carrying ship docked at the Chittagong port directly from Karachi, Pakistan. Indian media outlets claimed that the ship was the same Pakistani military vessel 鈥楽wat鈥� which had brought arms and ammunition to then Chittagong during the 1971 War of Independence. They further alleged that the ship was carrying weapons from Pakistan to Bangladesh. A Rumor Scanner investigation found the ship鈥檚 name MV Yuan Xiang Fa Zhan, a commercial vessel that brought industrial raw materials and consumer goods to Bangladesh.
On November 25, the Detective Branch of Police arrested Hindu leader Chinmoy Krishna Das in Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport are on the charges of disrespecting the national flag. The following day he was presented before a Chattogram court that denied him bail. Tension rose on the court premises, and as authorities attempted to escort Chinmoy to a prison van for transfer to jail, his supporters began protesting. The police and Border Guard Bangladesh charged batons and hurled sound grenades to disperse the demonstrators. During the clashes, Chattogram district court lawyer Saiful Islam Alif was killed. But Indian media outlets falsely claimed that Saiful was murdered because he was Chinmoy鈥檚 lawyer. Chinmoy鈥檚 lawyer was Subhashish Sharma, not Saiful Islam.
Some Indian media outlets also falsely claimed that the broadcast of Indian satellite channels were shut down in Bangladesh.
The Indian media also falsely reported that the Bangladesh Air Force, with China鈥檚 technical assistance, was planning to build Asia鈥檚 second-largest airbase at Lalmonirhat airport near the聽Siliguri Corridor, also known as the聽Chicken鈥檚 Neck, a narrow stretch of land bordering Bangladesh. The Lalmonirhat airport has been closed for over six decades, and no recent initiatives are there to resume its operations.
Recently, a video clip claiming that Muslims in Bangladesh attacked a Hindu temple and vandalised idols spread online and promoted by some Indian media outlets. The Rumor Scanner team found that the video was not from Bangladesh but from the village of Sultanpur in East Burdwan district, India, showing a scene of idol immersion.
In another instance of false publishing and broadcasting false news, some Indian media outlets claimed in reports that a collision between a Shyamoli Paribahan bus and a Bangladeshi truck on the Dhaka-Agartala-Dhaka route in Brahmanbaria was intentional. The news also claimed that local people had given life threats to the Indian passengers aboard the bus and chanted anti-India slogans. The Rumor Scanner team found the accident occurred due to overtaking, and not intentionally, while no evidence of threats or anti-India slogans were found either.
Some Indian news outlets claimed that the UK had issued a travel advisory warning of potential terror attacks in Bangladesh for its citizens, which was found misleading by the Rumor Scanner.
